by Ian Withrow
“Of course, no one blames you, young lady, it is an awfully big burden.” Kent said, looking pointedly at Allison.
“She's just a child, Mr. Dailey.”
Allison broke her relative silence.
“She's my child, and frankly, I wish she could live a normal life. It’s bad enough she’s spent almost her entire life so far being carted around the country, she doesn't need to be paraded around the world every waking moment!”
With her outburst concluded, Allison stood swiftly, taking Lauren by the hand she marched offstage.
Kent's response was drowned out by the pounding in Allison's ears as her blood boiled with rage. It wasn't until they got to the parking lot of the studio that she began to calm down.
“Mommy, can you not squeeze so hard, it hurts,” Lauren's small voice broke through her anger and she let go of her daughters thin wrist immediately. For a brief moment there was a red mark where Allison had clearly been gripping like a vice, but before their eyes it faded and returned to her soft pink skin once more.
Appalled, Allison reached out to Lauren and wrapped her in a bear hug.
“I'm so sorry, baby, mommy is just...very frustrated with that mean man.”
“But mom, why did he say that stuff? We do help people, don’t we?”
Allison chewed on her lip.
“Honey, you’re doing great. That bad man was trying to make you feel bad. He wants to hurt us because… well, I don’t know why to be honest baby. I guess because he thinks putting other people down makes him look better somehow.”
She searched her daughter’s face for understanding, but couldn’t shake the feeling she was botching her little pep talk.
“Let's get in the car, ok? We're going home.”
The car ride from Chicago was awkward for a long while, as minutes turned into hours.
The silence was finally broken by Lauren.
“Mom, was he right?”
Allison felt her heart leap into her throat. The pain in Lauren's voice was palpable.
“No, baby, you don't owe anyone anything. You help so many people because you're kind and good. Don't let him make you believe otherwise.”
Lauren nodded her understanding, but as she stared at the increasingly rural landscape outside the window, Allison could tell that she still had doubts.
Allison barely remembered the car ride. Her racing mind had her body on autopilot. By the time she pulled into the driveway of their quaint, single-story family home on the outskirts of Galesburg, she was awash in emotion. She could barely contain the tears threatening to slip from her eyes. She was a horrible mother. She had let her baby be humiliated and made to feel awful for things out of her control, and in front of millions of people around the world.
The neighborhood was quiet and dark, being mostly filled with the elderly or families with school-age children like hers. It tended to settle down by 9:00 p.m. The lights were on in the house, so Allison knew John must still be up, waiting for them.
The thought of facing him, of what he might say about her failure, was frightening. As her thoughts swirled, her anxiety took on a tinge of anger. She deflected her self-loathing, finding reasons to direct her rekindling wrath at her husband.
If he had been there he could have done something. It wasn't fair to leave her alone to chaperon such an important interview. He could have stepped in and said something to prevent Dailey from running over them the way he did. By the time she gathered the nerve to shut the vehicle off and face him, the flames of her anger had grown, fanned by guilt and shame.
While her mother put the car in park, Lauren slipped out of her seat-belt and trudged slowly to the house. She felt like she had failed today. No one had ever suggested she should be doing more before. Or had they? Had her parents simply shielded her from the reality that there were horrors beyond her knowledge? Should she have been doing more?
She thought about her journeys, of the crowds of people she usually met. She didn't know what AIDS was, or how someone caught malaria, but the way the man at the studio had said those words, they sounded bad. Lauren realized she rarely knew what was 'wrong' with the people she helped. Crowds usually met her when they traveled, and people liked to touch her hands, and her parents simply told her that they would feel better afterward.
Lauren trailed behind her mother as they approached the door. Allison fumbled for a moment with her keys, and when she finally got the door to unlock she threw it open with a frustrated shove, causing it to bang loudly against the wall of the living room.
John, who was standing in the room with two glasses of wine in one hand and an opened bottle in the other, was startled to the point of spilling some of the deep red liquid onto the floor. He swore as the red began to soak into the hardwood.
“Dammit, Allie, you scared the hell out of me,” he began, only to be cut off by his wife.
“Dammit Allie? Dammit Allie! How dare you!”
John attempted to placate her as he approached and tried to give her a hug.
“Baby, come here. I'm sorry”
Allison's already loud voice instantly rose higher.
“Where the hell were you! We needed you today and you stayed in this fucking house! Didn't you see what they did to our little girl?”
She slapped the glasses out of John's hand, causing them to shatter and unintentionally slicing a thin line into her palm. Pieces of glass flew across the room, tinkling across the worn cherry-wood floors as she shouted.
Blood welled up from her wound, sprinkling across the floor.
Lauren let out a startled peep, her eyes wide with fright.
“Dammit, John.” Allison's tears finally broke through her self control and began to flow down her face. She clutched her hand, crimson slipping out between her fingers as she turned to Lauren.
“It's ok, baby, go to your room. Mommy and Daddy just need to talk.”
Lauren retreated to her bedroom, but the door did little to stifle the ever-increasing volume of her parents fighting. The screaming match seemed to last forever as Lauren huddled beneath the blankets of her small bed. She must have fallen asleep eventually, because she woke to a slowly brightening sky outside her window.
Cautiously Lauren walked out from her bedroom. She went first to her parents’ room, but found it empty, the bed still made from the day before. She continued on to the common area of the house, where she found her father sleeping on the brown leather couch in their living room. He looked cold and uncomfortable, wrapped in a spare blanket and without a pillow. The only evidence of the fight the night before was a somber red stain in the wood grain of the room. It stood out sharply amidst the cream-colored walls and the warm tones of the other floorboards.
Lauren returned to her room where she took the blanket from her bed and brought it out, placing it gently over her father's sleeping form. She brushed his face gently, and his expression softened from a scowl to that of peaceful slumber.
Unsure of what to do, Lauren thought of what she might like if she were unhappy, and came to what she thought was a good conclusion: pancakes.
John was walking through a grassy field, wide and green, with gentle, rolling hills. The landscape was well lit, though there was no sun in the bright blue sky. The air smelled sweet, like maple trees in the fall. Before him, the only standout in the otherwise fairly featureless plain, stood a tall tree. From a distance it seemed to shine, a mix of silvers and coppers, and as he got closer he could see why. Where leaves would be expected, instead the tree was covered in every kind of dish he could think of. Dozens of skillets and pans--even a tea kettle--clinked gently alongside forks, knives and spoons in the slight breeze. Aside from the chiming cutlery there perched a large white dove on the uppermost branch, singing softly. The tune was familiar but he couldn't place it. He must have scared the bird as he approached, because it suddenly sprang to life. Flinging itself upward into the sky, it set the whole tree shaking.
John awoke with a start to a crash of clattering pans a
nd the faint smell of smoke. He bolted upright, nearly falling from the couch as he did so.
“Allie,” he called as he stumbled to his feet and rushed to the kitchen, where the smoke seemed to be coming from.
He had to stop and laugh at the scene before him, so unexpected that he could hardly process it in his newly awakened state.
An oblivious Lauren danced precariously on the top step of a black and white stepping stool. Her earbuds were in and her iPod clearly cranked to max volume. She was singing shrilly along to Amazing Grace, though to hear her sing it, you might expect it was a rock ballad rather than a hymn. Flour covered at least a quarter of the kitchen, counters, table, and floor included. She was mixing something that looked like paper mache in a large bowl with the biggest serving spoon the family owned. The stove in front of her had two skillets and a large saucepan on the burners, all three turned to high heat. To her left, atop the counter, was a plate piled high with various roundish flat objects ranging in color from tan to black and in size from palm sized to plate sized. The only part of the room that didn't look like a disaster was the kitchen table, upon which sat table settings for three.
Lauren, for her part, seemed to have recovered emotionally from the night before, and John could only assume that she had determined pancakes would be the solution to their problems. If only that were true.
Before John's thoughts could darken further, he heard the front door open behind him. Turning, he saw Allison, her hair mussed and her eyes tired, still wearing the button-down white blouse and black skirt she had on for the interview yesterday. Her matching blazer was slung over her forearm and her heels were held in one hand by their back-straps. She gave John a tired look. Her eyes were bloodshot and he could see she hadn't gotten much sleep.
He put a finger to his lips as she opened her mouth to speak, eliciting a confused look from her. He motioned her to come over and she did so, as he approached he held an arm out to her. She embraced him, burying her head in his shoulder and clinging tightly to him. John noticed that she reeked of cheap liquor but he said nothing. After a moment of holding her as she silently sobbed against him, he reached a hand up to her cheek, brushed a tear from below her eye and kissed her gently on the forehead.
John turned his eyes back to the kitchen, and Allison followed his gaze to the sight of their little girl, unknowingly reminding them of the good they had done, the reasons they fell in love, and giving them hope.
As if on cue, Lauren turned slightly while belting out a particularly heartfelt chorus. Upon seeing her parents in the doorway, she froze. The spoon she held to her mouth like a microphone dripped lumpy batter to the floor and the bowl in her other hand tilted dangerously, threatening to empty its contents at any moment.
“Mommy!”
Lauren's delight could have melted the coldest of hearts, and to her parents it was a warm blanket of peace.
Gifted, miraculous, endearing, were all traits of their darling angel. Good cooking, however, was not yet counted among her talents. Nonetheless, Allison and John dutifully choked down several pancakes each, trying not to cough when their chewing uncovered clumps of flour.
After breakfast, Lauren scooted off to take a bath at her mother's insistence. John and Allison began the monumental task of tackling the chaos their kitchen had become. Content for a time simply to be in each other’s presence, they didn't speak for several minutes.
“Allie, I'm sorry,” John began, prompting Allison to halt her efforts to scrub dried batter from the counter. “I...should have been there.”
“Don't, John. Don't blame yourself. It's our fault, both of us. We should never have done this to her. Or to us.”
Allison's eyes welled up with tears. She was desperately unhappy, and John could see it clearly.
“Allie, I've been thinking.” John hesitated; he tried to gauge his wife's mood, unwilling to repeat last night. “We could stop. We could leave and just disappear.”
Allison opened her mouth to speak but John cut her off, determined to speak his mind while he still had the nerve.
“Hear me out. There's a place for sale down south, near Cobden. I've been setting aside money every month since this circus started and we could buy it outright, no paper trail. We'll go, we won't tell anyone. We can start over, we can work on...work on us for a while.”
Allison was swept away to another time and place when John spoke of Cobden. It seemed like a lifetime ago that they had spent their honeymoon there, in an off-the-beaten-path cabin in Southern Illinois. Cobden was a town of a few hundred, nestled in the heart of the Shawnee National Forest, welcoming to strangers, with the sort of small town charm that brought out the kindness out in anyone.
Doubt, however, did not let her linger in the land of what could be for long. She returned to cold reality, to her bare feet on the rough wood of the floor and the lukewarm rag in her hand.
“How, though? How can we just up and leave?”
“It's a wooded lot with a cabin on it, about 30 acres. There's an old mobile home on the property that just needs a little patching up...” John trailed off near the end, losing nerve when Allison didn't seem convinced.
She looked around the room, her eyes stopping on many of the dozens of knick-knacks that made it home. Family portraits hung on the walls, drawings and finger-paintings on the fridge.
Allison started to speak, but before she could, John cut her off.
“Allie, we can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this.” He spoke with desperation, making a last-ditch attempt to convince her. “We'll use a fake name, we can live off our accounts until things die down, and...and I can find something when we get there if we get low on money.”
It was Lauren’s reappearance that made up Allison's mind. She re-entered the room, hair still wet and wrapped in a pink, unicorn-covered beach towel that covered her tiny frame and dragged behind her like the train of an over-large dress.
Her eyes were filled with hope, her heart calmed from the storm the night before and mended with the promise that her parents were still here, her family still together.
The rest of the day was spent in a flurry of activity. The Corvidae house was a sea of barely contained chaos as the accumulated lives of its three residents were systematically boxed, labeled, and crammed into the shrinking cargo space of the family van.
By nightfall, the house was in disarray. It wasn't empty, but it no longer looked like a home. Of course, they couldn't fit everything in the vehicle, but they would manage with what they had. The constant tour of talk shows and television appearances had been a considerable windfall for the family, and being frugal by nature, they had plenty of money saved up. As the van pulled out of the driveway Lauren took one last look at her home, illuminated softly by a streetlight and fading fast into the night. It was the only home she had ever known, but she wasn't too worried about leaving it behind. Lauren had never been to a normal school, having been home-schooled, and she had little contact with kids her own age because of her celebrity status. With fresh optimism, she looked to the future.
Chapter Three:
The smell of wet grass and wildflowers filled the evening air. It was Lauren's favorite smell: nature. Something about lying in tall grass, smelling the dew, and feeling the gentle silence of the earth truly centered her. She was resting from a long day of romping in the woods around her house. Woods that over the past six summers had become an extension of her home.
Especially when things got bad.
Lauren shook her head, clearing away the thunderclouds of worry before they could fully form in her mind, turning her thoughts to the very real storm clouds on the horizon instead. The breeze picked up and lightning flashed, the scent of rain now mixed with the fragrances of the Shawnee forest. There was a tinge of ozone to the air, accentuating the faint feeling of desperation in the late August evening warmth.
Tomorrow she would begin her first day of public high school. So far she’d remained in homeschooling, mostly for fear of being rec
ognized from the non-stop news coverage following her disappearance. But the girl who had run away six years ago had been replaced by a young woman.
Lauren's hair had changed from childish curls to flowing, gentle waves that inspired jealousy from her peers. She was taller as well, having sprouted to almost five and a half feet. She was self-conscious, however, as she still looked awfully boyish to her own eyes. She had no curves whatsoever. She remained rail-thin to the point of looking fragile.
“Elegant,” her father always chided her when she was being self-deprecating. Her golden eyes, like bottomless pools of amber, were the only thing that hadn’t changed. No, she mused, it was very unlikely that anyone would recognize her now.
The sun slowly settled over the horizon, blazing glorious oranges and reds across the thunderstorm as it rolled in slowly from the west. She waited until fat summer raindrops began to sprinkle the grass around her before she rolled to her feet and began the trek home.
She was only three miles or so away, and her long, tawny legs chewed up the distance with smooth grace. Lauren loved to run these trails: the thrill of the scenery rushing past, the adrenaline filling her muscles, and the slow burn settling into her lungs and legs as she ran. One blessing of her longer legs, as well as her trim body, was that she could run like the wind. Her father took great pride in her ability to run, and talked at great length with her about joining the track team when she finally started public school. It was one of the only things she wasn't worried about.
With more than a mile yet to go before reaching her yard, Lauren realized the storm was a bit worse than she had judged. The rain was coming down in sheets now, so thick she could barely see. Water pooled everywhere in the low-lying southern Illinois hills. Lightning arced across the skies and peals of thunder shook the trees around her as she ran. Wind whipped the rain nearly sideways with such force that it stung like hail.
It's a good thing I know this area so well, Lauren worried to herself, I'd hate to be lost out here in this. Know it well, she did. Lauren could navigate these paths blindfolded if she had to, but the path was still treacherous.
